Christmas In The Snake Pit
by SereneCalamity
Summary: Christmas hadn't been a good time for her in quite some time. Bughead. Oneshot.


_Just a short Christmas fic..._

 _Disclaimer: I do not own the characters._

Elizabeth Cooper woke up, and as soon as it sunk in what day it was, a heavy stone settled itself in the pit of her stomach. She closed her eyes, and wondered if she could go back to sleep, and just ignore this whole day. But she could hear movement downstairs and every now and then there was a loud yell from Emily Andrews, probably before her parents quietened her back down.

There was no way she was going to go back to sleep, and she rolled over, the duvet tangled around her waist and legs, and picked up her phone.

 _Merry Christmas, baby sister._

There was already a message from Polly Cooper, and Betty's lips curled upward just a little. There was nothing from her parents, which was not surprising at all. She had run away from home the day after she had turned eighteen, not ready to wait out the rest of the school year in the horror house that she had grown up in.

With an abusive, alcoholic father and a mother who was completely uninterested in her, she couldn't deal with a minute longer in that house than she needed to be.

So she had withdrawn all the money from her account—everything that she had been saving from working at the garage in downtown Riverdale—packed a duffle bag with as many clothes as she could, along with her phone charger, iPad and the book _Beloved_ by her favourite author, Toni Morrison, and she had left. She had got on a bus without thinking much about where she was going, and got off when it got to the end of it's journey. She had enough money to get a cheap hotel and the next day she looked for a job. It was just chance that she went by a garage that didn't laugh her out the gate, given she had no degree.

Forsythe Pendleton 'Jughead' Jones III had been in charge, and he had given her a chance.

And just a month later, he gave her a home and introduced her to the _Serpents_ , the family that she had always wished for.

Christmas had always been horrible at home, especially after Polly had left. It was meant to be a time when everyone was happy, and everyone came together to be with the ones they loved. The Cooper house was always just empty and dark and sad. If it had always been that way, then maybe that day wouldn't have been as bad, because there wouldn't have been something for Betty to miss. But since her eldest brother, Chic Cooper, drowned over six years ago, things had never been the same in the Cooper household, and Betty had bore the brunt of it.

"Betty?" There was a tap at the door before it was pushed open, and Veronica Lodge was standing there, with Emily in her arms. "Em was asking when her Aunty Betty would be up." Betty moved until she was sitting and she smiled as Emily came into view when Veronica opened the door wide. She had to admit, Emily looked absolutely gorgeous, wearing a bright red dress with a tutu skirt and then red and white striped tights. Her hair was in two little pony tails and she had a red headband on with two little white snowmen sticking up from it.

"Betty!" Emily cried and she struggled against Veronica's arms to try and get to the bed. The three year old was put down by her mother, and she ran over to Betty's side of the bed, clambering up with a little difficulty, and then blabbing away, a mile a minute.

"Breakfast will be ready in ten minutes," Veronica told Betty with a smile before leaving the two of them. Betty tried to focus her full attention on Emily, but her mind kept flicking back to how Christmas the year before had been. It had been horrific. Her father had gotten so drunk that he had smashed the glass in the back door and her mother had left to meet up with her married lover. Betty had tried to cook a roast for them, but when her father had broken the glass, she had gotten distracted, and it had burnt, and then her father had screamed at her for the smell that filled the kitchen.

When Jughead had said that his family all came to his house for Christmas, along with some of the other _Serpents_ , Betty had frozen. She had covered it up by joking that she really wasn't a good enough cook to make food for all of them, but Jughead had seen right through it. He had given her space to process, hadn't pushed her about it, but a few days later, she had told him.

Jughead had held her and made her feel safe—and the fact that the member of a biker gang with tattoo's littered all over his torso, who was feared by half the town and intimidated the police, made her feel safer than her parents had in years, really said something.

He promised her that this Christmas would be nothing like the ones that she had endured beforehand.

And she believed him, she really did. She loved his parents and his sister, and there had been a bit of a rocky start when she was being introduced to the _Serpents_ , but Veronica had helped her navigate her path. Veronica was the girlfriend of Jughead's best friend and fellow _Serpent_ , Archie Andrews. She now got on well with the _Serpents_ , and their families.

Even so, Betty still couldn't get rid of the stigma that she had around Christmas.

"Come on!" Emily encouraged as she slid off the bed and held out her arms.

"Just wait a sec, okay?" Betty said. "I just need to put on some clothes." Emily nodded, and watched with wide eyes as Betty went to the closet to pull on a clean shirt and then found some jeans. "Alright, up?" Betty asked, looking down at Emily, who nodded, the little snowmen on her headband bouncing back and forth. Betty leaned down and picked up the girl and rested her on her hip. Her fingers were already sticky from whatever she had been eating this morning, and Betty didn't even bother trying to stop Emily from grabbing her shirt and spreading the stickiness over the material, there wasn't much point.

"Merry Christmas, B!" Forsythia 'Jellybean' Jones called out as Betty got to the bottom of the stairs and Jellybean was skipping past to head back upstairs, probably to grab something from the room that she claimed as her own.

"Oh, you're awake!" Gladys Jones cried out from the kitchen, where she, Toni Topaz and Mary Andrews were all gathered together, cooking. Veronica was in the kitchen as well, but she just had a glass of wine in her hand and was leaning against the wall. "Come in, babe, have a drink."

"It's, like, nine in the morning," Betty pointed out with a laugh as she put the wriggling Emily down, who had heard her father in the next room.

"It's never too early to drink on Christmas," Veronica said with a grin, waving a bottle of wine around. Maybe Betty should shy away from it, given her fathers problem with drinking, but it just made Betty more careful about her limits. She nodded and Veronica cheered and then set about finding another wine glass.

"Do you guys need any help?" Betty asked as Veronica poured her a glass, and Betty noted that there were other wine glasses dotted around the kitchen, obviously belonging the woman cooking. The atmosphere in the room was completely different though, from how her childhood home had been when people were drinking. Gladys and Mary were laughing and Toni's pink hair was bouncing around her shoulders as she was splitting her attention between the frying pan in front of her and Veronica. They were all happy and the room was just filled with love, and Betty took a step back as she tried to reign in her emotions.

"Morning, babes," Forsythe Pendleton 'FP' Jones II said as he came through the doorway of the kitchen. "Merry Christmas," he gave her a kiss on the temple before walking over to his wife and looping his arms around her waist, pulling her in for a kiss. Gladys laughed and attempted to bat away his hands away. FP laughed, his laugh so open and honest, and Betty loved it. It wasn't a side he usually let show, given he was the president of one of the largest biker gangs in this part of the country, but he was like the father that Betty had always longed for.

"Get out of here," Gladys laughed, giving him a push. FP grinned back at her, giving Mary a kiss on the cheek as well, and then walked back toward Betty.

"Come on, girl," he told her. "I can see where we're not wanted." He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and ushered her out of the kitchen. They headed toward their lounge, passing by all the tinsel that was hanging from the walls, courtesy of an over-eager Veronica and Toni a few days ago. Sweet Pea was in the lounge with two other Serpents members, and in the corner of the room—where the massive Christmas tree was, that Jellybean, Gladys and Mary had decorated—was Archie Andrews and Jughead.

"Hey, Bets," Jughead smiled at her. She moved over to stand by him, rolling her eyes as Sweet Pea pressed play on a stereo and Christmas carols began filling the room and a cheer went up. The boys started laughing and Emily ran in and started dancing in the middle of the room, arms in the air, and all eyes in the room were adoringly on her. Jughead put his arm around her, hugging her to his side. "You alright?" He asked her quietly.

"Yeah," Betty nodded, and there was absolute honesty in her voice. Because already, this was something so completely different from what she was used to. With the laughing in the kitchen, and the amazing smells that were coming into the room, the way Sweet Pea and Archie were completely enamored by Emily, and they were singing Christmas carols along with her. The two other _Serpent_ members, along with FP and Fred Andrews, who had just come into the room, all had wide smiles on their faces and looked completely carefree. "I'm good."

Mary came through from the kitchen first, two dishes in her hands, and a cheer went up from everyone in the lounge as Gladys came out as well, dishes in both of her hands as well.

"Things are about to get real crazy," Jughead warned Betty with a grin. "There's always fights over the pancakes and bacon."

"I can live with that," Betty replied, with a small smile of her own, feeling hopeful for a Christmas for the first time in a long time as she followed the horde of yelling and over-excited Serpents who were attempting to swarm through the door into the dining room all at once. Betty's smile grew, and she followed after Jughead, into the snake pit, which was the only place he wanted to be.

 _Let me know what you think :)_


End file.
